My Story

Chapter Four

          "Hermione, you know I'd do anything for you, but us… together? He's got to be bloody crazy!" Ron said enthusiastically across the table eating his breakfast rather sloppily which I found quite irritable. I don't know why, but I felt a weird twinge as he sounded like us together would have been the most revolting idea on this earth.

          "Yeah, I suppose so," I sighed and ate another bite of my eggs. I don't know why, but my mind kept wondering to Draco and flirtatious conversations from the night before.

          "Why does he keep looking over here?" Ron asked, interrupting my train of thought. I looked to follow his gaze to find a certain blonde Slytherin seated at the table across the hall.

          "Who?" I asked nonchantly, feeling a bit of happiness that maybe I wasn't the only thinking about what had gone on yesterday.

          "You know who!" Ron said loudly looking at me as if I were going to turn into a monkey and run around the zoo in a pink bikini.

          "What is the look for and who are you talking about?" I chuckled and ate my food, pretending to be innocent and clueless

          "You and… and --," He paused. "Draco?" He said again causing a Ravenclaw girl at the table next to ours to look over her shoulder.

          "Ron, be quiet. No, not me and Draco!" I whispered loudly.

          "Right. This will be the first and last time to say I'm glad my suspicions were wrong. You and Draco would never work out in the first place!"

          We ate for a few minutes in silence.

          "Okay, yes," I looked down at my plate waiting for Ron to blow up.

          "Yes, what?" He asked.

          "Yes – me and Draco," I had forgotten – he had lost all of his short term memory capability when it came to anything besides food.

          "Oh, Hermione! How disgusting is that? Is that really why you broke up with Harry?" Ron asked with a disgusted look on his face.

          I just nodded my head in response and he made a pretend gagging gesture which I almost considered incredibly… cute. Ew, Ron… cute? No way.

          We had both finished breakfast and were headed to first period Transfiguration in silence.

          "Does Harry know?" Ron asked quietly as there were many people in the hallway.

          "Of course not," I replied quickly.

          "Like he won't find out," Ron said. "He knows you dumped him for someone else anyway, at least that's what I gathered when I overheard him talking to Seamus."

          "When did you hear him talking to Seamus?" I stopped as we reached the outside of the door.

          "They were walking in front us the whole way here and we weren't talking. You didn't notice? I was sure you heard the whole thing," Ron paused and looked at me. "He thinks it's me, Herm." He pushed a strand of my curly hair behind my ear like he always did when it was a sentimental moment between the two of us.

          "Well, it's not," I replied rather hastily. 'Haha! Got you back for the comment this morning,' I thought. I felt bad immediately because I could almost see Ron's face fall.

          "Right." He paused. "Draco." Ron cringed and pulled back his hand.

          "Right." I smiled at him and that's when the door swung open.

          "Nice of you to join us, Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger, glad to know being on time for Transfiguration is top on your list! Sit down," Professor McGonagall's voice penetrated the silence that had lingered between me and my best friend as we sulked to the back to sit in the two corner desks next to each other.

          ~*~

          I was walking down the hallway rather quickly when I heard someone call my name.

          "Hermione!" The voice said behind me. I turned around to see Draco standing there, books in hand, looking incredibly… handsome.

          "Hey, Draco," I smiled innocently as he walked towards me.

          "What's up?" We started walking down the hall towards the stairs.

          "Just going to dinner… glad the day is over," I was still smiling. This moment almost felt awkward.

          "Yeah, me, too," he said as he smiled back at me. "Well, I'd be more than happy to escort you to dinner." I nodded my head in response, trying not to seem to desperate.

          "So… where are your friends?" He asked, trying to break the silence filling the vacant corridor.

          "Um… well… They're probably already chowing down in the Great Hall." I wondered why he was asking about Ron and Harry when he hated them. Why was he even talking to me? He hated me, too.

          "Oh, you mean Harry doesn't walk you to classes or dinner or anything?" He asked looking at me curiously.

          "Nah, well, I mean…" I paused. He hadn't heard about the break up yet obviously like everybody else. "I broke up with him and all." The sound of our footsteps echoed in the dreadfully uncomfortable silence.

          "Yeah, I heard. I just wanted to hear it from you, I guess." He smiled again and stopped walking right outside of the Great Hall.

          "Why are you doing this?" I blurted out. 'Gah, stupid!' I slapped myself mentally.

          "Doing what?" He looked at me with a baffled expression.

          "This," I said looking down at the hand holding we had started back in the beginning of the conversation.

          A few students were walking by and giving us very strange looks before running off in the other direction.

          "I guess… I like you, Hermione," he said rather quickly.

          "You like me?" I asked.

"Yes, I like you," He responded rather loudly. We were still getting weird looks from the people exiting the great hall.

"Well, I'll try to catch you after dinner… it would be rather awkward for us to sit together, you know." He said and squeezed my hand before walking away leaving me breathless.

Could I truly like the boy that had made fun of me for all these years? The one who called me nasty names and claimed to hate me? Was this real?

What was I going to do?